I am building a project from source and am trying to understand what is happening in the CMakeLists.txt files.
Where exactly is target_link_libraries looking for the required library files?
The specific CMakeLists.txt file I have has:
target_link_libraries(MyApplication PRIVATE
Magnum::Application
Magnum::GL
Magnum::Magnum
Magnum::Shaders)
I found folders that have the names GL and Shaders in a directory called Magnum in the project, and they have a collection of header files in them. I believed that target_link_libraries is telling CMake to include the libraries in the GL and Shaders folder.
However, I cannot seem to find a corresponding folder for Application, hence my line of reasoning must be flawed. I do know target_link_libraries is doing something related to allowing the finally-put-together program to be able to use a set of libraries.
What exactly does target_link_libraries do? Where does it look for the required files in order to be able to use the libraries it needs to?
In your specific case, you pass targets to
target_link_libraries()
. Targets with a shape likeMagnum::Application
etc are either imported targets or ALIAS targets. From what you say, it seems than Magnum is vendored into your project, so I guess your are linking ALIAS targets, like the one defined here https://github.com/mosra/magnum/blob/cfc02599e54e02337dd56bb61f70b2e61eb9ce8d/src/Magnum/CMakeLists.txt#L295Targets defined by
add_library()
oradd_executable()
in CMake are an abstraction carrying several informations, including location of files.